


Is There a Dalish Word for Kitten?

by delicate_mageflower



Series: It Means Tumult Universe [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Flirting, F/F, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mild Angst, Mutual Pining, Neurodivergent Character(s), relationship initiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 23:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6727672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicate_mageflower/pseuds/delicate_mageflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seemed to Isabela that she and Merrill were the last to know there was something between them, but eventually that something needed to snap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is There a Dalish Word for Kitten?

**Author's Note:**

> CW: generalised anxiety, self-doubt, self-shaming, implied/referenced past abuse, implied/referenced hypersexuality
> 
> Honestly, I just love these two so much and I ship them so hard, no matter what universe they're in, so this was simply begging to be written.

Isabela woke up on Merrill’s couch. Again. It seemed she was beginning to make a habit of this. In fact, it had happened at least twice before just that month. She supposed it made sense, though. She’d been over there every day for a while, and all too often they stayed up well into the night, just talking, sometimes over a few beers, and occasionally she’d simply realise she was too tired to get herself home and crash there until morning. When she actually left in the morning, of course. Which was also becoming more and more of a rarity.

Isabela’s job was always at night, so it wasn’t like she was ever particularly in any real rush to leave, and Merrill’s was extremely flexible, even usually allowing her to work from home. She’d been in full research mode recently, and that mostly meant staring at a computer screen for hours on end, and there was no actual need to physically go to the university for that.

A thin blanket had been tossed over her, probably after she’d fallen asleep, and she gripped it tight, taking in the comfort, of the way it smelled like Merrill.

She was completely fucked, and she knew it.

She stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. She’d heard the whispers of their friends, who evidently thought they were far slicker than they were, and she assumed Merrill probably had, as well. Even Aveline, for all her similar mishaps with her partner, was apparently in on the banter that took place behind their backs.

Isabela, of course, had a reputation, one that had initially followed her even to Kirkwall, but she was no longer sure just how haunting it still was. She was relatively certain none of their friends knew about her brief past with Anders—but that was, of course, all the way back in Ferelden, in what practically felt like another life—and even her fling with Fenris had been kept pretty well under wraps. That, by far the more recent of the two, had been a lot of fun, but that was all it was ever meant to be, and that was fine. It had, however, abruptly ceased to be, for reasons she couldn’t place. Fenris had his own trauma to deal with and she had assumed his newfound distance was related, but it dawned on her that he hadn’t been distant. They were as good of friends as they’d ever been, only sans “benefits.” It wasn’t until that very moment that it even occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t him, after all, but her.

Well, not just her. Them.

She was completely and utterly fucked.

“Good morning,” Merrill said cheerfully upon entering the main room of her home, which had already begun to feel more like a home to Isabela than even her own. Or any she’d ever known, if she was being truly honest.

“Morning, Kitten,” she smiled back as she rose to sit up, and Merrill promptly sat down beside her.

She reached for her laptop from the coffee table. “I hope you don’t mind, I just need to check something for work, but this shouldn’t take too long…”

Isabela thought back again to that reputation of hers, how what bothered her was simply that it suddenly bothered her. She was never really one to care much what people thought of her, and she was definitely never one to be ashamed of her sexuality. She’d gotten around because she enjoyed it, and at the end of the day it wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. Only when she thought of Merrill did any kind of negativity accompany the thought, and she quickly started to suspect it was more a mask for deeper worries than anything.

Merrill was special, she realised. Merrill was special and she already had no idea, and the self-consciousness she tried so hard to suppress washed over Isabela in full force at the thought that if anything were to happen between them, Merrill might believe she was just part of a pattern. But she wasn’t, not by a long shot, and that above all else was the most terrifying part of the entire situation.

Merrill had some idea of what Isabela had been through, even of some of the finer details of her disastrous marriage, of why she went about such things quite the way she did. Perhaps that might help her understand, add some perspective. She was over-thinking it, she knew she was over-thinking it. She knew Merrill didn’t care about any of that, and she was sure she saw the same look in Merrill’s eyes she expected she had in her own whenever they were together, but she still couldn’t seem to fathom what to do with that, how to make it real. Concern over her reputation was a good excuse, at least, or so she hoped.

“Isabela?” Merrill’s voice reached through the fog of the thoughts that overwhelmed her, met with a sharp burst of additional self-loathing at the realisation that Merrill had been talking to her the whole time and she hadn’t heard a word. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have been rambling again…”

“No, Kitten,” Isabela exhaled sharply. Merrill’s face always lit up whenever she called her that. Even she couldn’t say why she did, but she’d started doing so from the very first time they met, and the reaction it brought never failed to make Isabela feel how she could only describe as warm inside. “No, it’s not you, I’m so sorry. I just have a lot on my mind, I guess.”

Merrill closed her computer without a second thought. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I’m fine, Kitten,” she shrugged. “Why don’t you start over with your thing?”

“You don’t have to do that, Isabela, I understand,” Merrill said softly, and Isabela could have kicked herself.

“No, bullshit,” she exclaimed. “I _always_ want to hear what you have to say, Merrill, and it’s a fucking shame on anyone who doesn’t. I have never known anyone so passionate, so dedicated to what they care about, and I don’t ever, ever, _ever_ want you to think that I don’t care, too. I care, Merrill. I do, I promise.”

Merrill had tucked one leg up under the other and had one arm hanging over the back of the couch, staring at Isabela intently, and she knew they were thinking the same thing.

“You never call me Merrill,” she noted warily, and she tried to smile, but it seemed that nerves were coming over her, too. They both, apparently, knew what was coming, that it was long overdue, so Isabela swallowed her fear, her pride, all of her questions and her doubt, and decided it was now or never as she just went for it.

“Merrill…Kitten…I care about what’s important to you because I care about _you.”_ She took in a deep breath and leaned towards Merrill just slightly, bracing herself for the words she hadn’t even quite realised had been on the tip of her tongue for months, bracing herself to actually finally speak them. “Merrill, I love you.”

“Oh, thank the Creators,” Merrill laughed, and Isabela cupped her cheeks with her hands as their foreheads met and Merrill gripped her waist before planting a quick, almost chaste kiss upon her lips. “Ma vhenan. I love you, too.”

“Ma vhenan?” Isabela asked, unfamiliar with the words.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Merrill added cautiously, and Isabela kissed her again to assure her it was alright. “It’s a Dalish term of endearment. A literal translation would be ‘my heart.’”

“Ma vhenan,” Isabela said herself, adding another kiss. “Ma vhenan…”

At that Merrill pressed further into her, claiming her entirely, and Isabela felt so content, so relieved, she didn’t know how she was containing it nearly as well as she was.

“Is there a Dalish word for kitten?” Isabela thought to ask between kisses, grinning wildly.

“You know,” Merrill practically giggled, “I’ll have to look it up.”

They wrapped themselves around each other completely, taking in every touch, every sound, every sensation, every beautiful moment that unfolded before them.

“What about your work thing?” Isabela finally asked against Merrill’s neck as she buried her face into her shoulder and her hands drifted beneath Merrill’s shirt.

“Fuck it,” Merrill breathed heavily in response. “It can wait. I think _this_ has waited long enough.”

“Yes, it has,” Isabela agreed, effortlessly lifting Merrill off of the couch, gripping her tight as she made their way into the bedroom, their lips barely leaving each other’s as she walked.

“Ma vhenan,” Isabela said again once they crashed down onto the bed, smiling wider with each passing second.

“Ar lath ma, ma vhenan,” Merrill whispered as she took Isabela’s head into her hands, pulling her closer down onto her, kissing her again and again. “I love you.”

Nothing had ever felt like this before, felt so right, and Isabela silently thanked all the gods she didn’t really believe in for what was happening to her, not for one moment taking her eyes off of the beautiful woman beneath her, barely taking back her lips even to breathe, just so grateful to finally have this, to have her, at long last. Her Merrill, her Kitten, her vhenan. Hers.


End file.
